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Abstract: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a final rule on Occupational Injury and Illness Recording and Reporting Requirements (66 FR 5916, January 19, 2001), that became effective January 1, 2002. After a regulatory review, the Agency determined that two provisions of the final rule would be delayed and reconsidered; the recording of occupational hearing loss (1904.10) and the recording of work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) (1904.12) (66 FR 35113, July 3, 2001). Subsequently, OSHA issued a final 1904.10 regulation setting recording criteria for occupational hearing loss (67 FR 44037, July 1, 2002). Following notice and comment, OSHA published another final rule to remove the WMSD recording provisions from the regulation and remove a separate column for identifying WMSDs from the OSHA 300 Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illness (68 FR 38601, June 30, 2003).
OSHA has reconsidered the need or a 300 Log column for WMSD, and for defining “musculoskeletal disorders” for recordkeeping purposes. The Agency believes that additional data on WMSDs may help employers and workers track these injuries at individual workplaces, and that the Nation’s occupational injury and illness information may benefit from improved statistics on WMSD. Improved WMSD information might also assist the Agency in its day-to-day activities and overall safety and health policymaking.
Therefore, OSHA is developing a proposed rule to add a definition of WMSD to 29 CFR part 1904 and a separate column on the 300 Log to track this class of injury/illness.